Who Needs A New Couch Anyway
The title describes my wife and I to a tee. It all started out one night when we were drinking with our good friends and we mention that we are going to get us a new couch. Our friend Jessica says “yea right, every time you talk about getting a new couch, you just go on vacation”. We just laughed because we realized it was true. We always talk about doing something to the house, or upgrading our furniture, like our couch, but then we would get a little money set aside and then we would book a vacation. What can I say, we love vacations. They aren’t always elaborate or huge vacations, sometimes it was just a weekend away, but these weekends here and there meant so much to us then and still do now.
Our love of adventure affords us to experience new things and discover new places together that helped to solidify our relationship. And we both knew that travel no matter how close, like a weekend in the mountains, (we lived in Denver at the time) or how far away, like our first cruise, travel and adventure was important to us.
I guess its because we both grew up with little money. I grew up with my mom being sick my entire life. My favorite memories from my childhood were vacations because it was the only time we didn’t have to put up with doctors or hospitals. It was like living in a fantasy and you could let go of life’s problems. My wife grew up in a different situation. They had less money than my family and hardly ever went on vacation. So traveling was something she always wanted to do. She told me about how when she was growing up, her Grandpa always used to have an atlas around. When she would visit her grandpa, she would spend hours reading the atlas. It was only the US Atlas, but there were so many places in there that she had never been and wanted to go.
One of those places she used to read about was New Mexico. My favorite trip that my wife and I took was to Albuquerque, New Mexico. This was one of our little weekend trips when we didn’t have a whole lot. So as soon as we got off on Friday we headed down to Albuquerque and had great time. I still remember spilling Coconut Cream pie milkshake from Sonic that i spilled all over my wifes truck. Or when I left the truck lights on in downtown Albuquerque and killed the battery. We found Albuquerque foot patrol officer in downtown and they jumped the truck. Or finding Tinker Town a cool little museum up in Sandia Crest.
At home I probably wouldn’t remember these mishappenings or care about a little museum, but when your on vacation it becomes part of the experience.
Who needs a Couch anyway is not just a metaphor, but 20 years from now are you going remember a couch in your living room or the milkshake that you spilled in your future wife’s truck. My wife and I will always remember our vacations but I can’t say that we will always remember our pieces of furniture, cars, tv’s, clothes etc. It’s a big world and you can’t fully appreciate it until you go out and experience it’s beauty.